Alibaba and Tencent temporarily restrict the operation of their AI chatbots due to entrance exams in China
In China, tech companies Alibaba and Tencent temporarily restricted the functionality of their artificial intelligence chatbots during the annual national university entrance exam “gaokao”. Qwen, Yuanbao, and Kimi apps have disabled image recognition to prevent possible deprecation by entrants. About this informs Bloomberg.
The restrictions are valid for several days of exams across the country. In response to users’ appeals, the chatbots say that the functions are temporarily unavailable “to ensure the fairness of the exams.” Some services, such as ByteDance’s Doubao, also do not process photos that violate “established rules.”
“Gaokao” is one of the most important educational tests in China, because admission to a prestigious university depends on its results. More than 13 million students take the exam every year. Because of the high stakes, families often spend a lot of money on training, hiring tutors, buying materials, and sometimes trying to find ways to cheat. With this in mind, the exams are held under strict supervision: mobile phones and other gadgets are prohibited, and invigilators watch each student.
With the advent of artificial intelligence, new threats have appeared – thanks to AI, students can receive ready-made answers just by uploading an image of the task. This puts academic integrity at risk. In response to the challenges, China’s Ministry of Education has developed new guidelines: students should be taught to use AI from an early age, but they are prohibited from submitting algorithm-generated content as their own answers.
Technology companies demonstrate a willingness to cooperate with the state to preserve the integrity of the educational process. Despite the temporary nature of the restrictions and the fact that the services will return to full functionality after the exams are over, the situation highlights how the rapid development of AI is transforming education and requires the introduction of new rules.
